Only the Beginning
New York magazine|March 16-29, 2020
The pandemic arrives, and the city shudders.
Photographs by David Wiliams
Only the Beginning

A City of Bodies

The week we started hoarding beans.

by MOLLY FISCHER

MY PRIVATE principle of subway etiquette has always gone something like this: Pretend you’re not a body, and help others do the same. I try not to touch; I try not to smell. I don’t eat. I don’t groom. I am eyes and ears only, compact and quiet, moving toward the center of the car as best I can.

It’s a pretense required to enjoy what I want to enjoy about living in New York: the simultaneous experience of proximity and privacy, watching and being watched without quite acknowledging either—the ability to indulge in solitude without isolation. It’s a pretense that, suddenly, has grown untenable. The truth, now unignorable: We were all bodies all along, no matter if we’d never clip our fingernails on the train. Whatever thin, invisible barriers I liked to imagine were not the kind to thwart a virus.

Navigating New York City in March of 2020 meant growing increasingly alert to gestures and sensations that once passed beneath notice. In the beginning, this all felt stagy, artificial. Your eye itches: Go to rub it, and pull your hand away. Your phone fidgets in your pocket: Do you pull it out? Someone coughs Lookup, wondering if they made it to their elbow. Quickly rearrange your face into the nonjudgmental expression of a person who’s definitely not a hygiene-vigilante panic monger. Stand on the rush-hour subway, holding the pole, your bag brushing the passenger behind you as the train stops. Imagine an oily phantom print of subway pole on your left palm until you reach a sink. What started out as stagy soon became routine.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 16-29, 2020-Ausgabe von New York magazine.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 16-29, 2020-Ausgabe von New York magazine.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

WEITERE ARTIKEL AUS NEW YORK MAGAZINEAlle anzeigen
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
New York magazine

Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.

SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
September 23 - October 6, 2024
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
New York magazine

The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.

On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
September 23 - October 6, 2024
Can the Media Survive?
New York magazine

Can the Media Survive?

BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
Status Update
New York magazine

Status Update

Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
A Matter of Perspective
New York magazine

A Matter of Perspective

A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.

time-read
3 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
Creator, Destroyer
New York magazine

Creator, Destroyer

A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
In Praise of Bad Readers
New York magazine

In Praise of Bad Readers

In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
New York magazine

Trust the Kieran Culkin Process

First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.

time-read
8 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
The Funniest Vampires on TV
New York magazine

The Funniest Vampires on TV

What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
The Water-Tower Penthouse
New York magazine

The Water-Tower Penthouse

Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.

time-read
2 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024